The field of the disclosure relates generally to gas turbine engines and, more particularly, to a system for actuating movable components of gas turbine engines using piston driven actuators.
Gas turbine engines typically include one or more movable components such as variable stator vanes (VSVs) and variable bleed valve (VBV) doors. In known gas turbine engines, VSVs and VBV doors are movable as a set using piston-based actuators driven with dedicated hydraulic lines. In such known gas turbine engine piston-based actuators, because of weight and space considerations, dedicated hydraulic lines represent a substantial burden on improved engine performance, including in terms of specific fuel consumption (SFC). Further, the dedicated hydraulic lines in such known piston-based actuators require a number of dedicated control systems and take up a substantial amount of space.
Furthermore, such known gas turbines utilizing known hydraulically actuated piston-based actuators are unable to effectively actuate VSVs and VBV doors individually. Rather, due to space and weight constraints, VSVs and VBV doors are actuated more than one individual component at a time in a set. As such, such known piston-based actuators are unable to effect independent modulation of VSV stages and VBV doors to accomplish, for example, active stall control for higher pressure ratios. Moreover, utilizing known hydraulically actuated piston-based actuators is limited in the displacement of VSVs and VBV doors, and therefore place limits on performance of such known gas turbine engines including advanced compressor designs and high speed boosters that are required for active stall control.